Anarchy (The Stone Legacy Series Book 4) (7 page)

Chapter Ten

Jayden walked along the narrow alleyway, toward the dead neon sign, and through the side door, straight into the hotel. No knocking. No secret password. Enough was enough.

In the main foyer, he spotted Hawa standing with her shoulders hunched, slopping the soggy mop over cracked tile and tattered wooden floor. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and glanced up, spotting him. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Out.” He walked past her, toward the stairs.

“With Modem?” She tossed the mop at him. The handle smacked him in the head and bounced off, clattering to the floor.

“What do you care?”

“Because you have chores to do, asshole.” She gestured to the puddle on the floor. “I got stuck pulling your load.”

He squared his shoulders. “
My load
? You’re talking to me like this is my home. Like I give a shit if Blade or anyone else around here says I need to do chores, which is the definition of
fucking stupid
in a place that’s falling apart.” He kicked the pail of water, throwing it feet away and splashing dirty water in every direction. With his jaw clenched, he shook his head. “Who are you? This isn’t the Hawa I knew in Renato’s house. You were always so hard and confident. You’re not the same when you’re here.” He wanted to tell her he knew about the baby, and about her putting up with Blade beating on her like his personal punching bag. He wanted to shake her by the shoulders and demand she explain herself—why she’d put up with that bullshit when she could have fought back.

Hawa shifted her weight, her eyes averted to the floor. “What did Modem tell you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” she said in a low growl.

It doesn’t change anything,
he said with his mind.

Hawa nodded, and her lips turned down in to a frown. “It changes a lot.”

“Brisa!”

Hawa jumped, and looked up to the third floor. Blade leaned against the railing, staring down at them.

Hawa cleared her throat. “Yeah?”

He waved her up. “Come here a minute.”

She stole a glance at Jayden, and then nodded. “Sure. Be right there.”

Not alone, you’re not.

“Stay out of it,” she whispered as she passed him.

He watched her scale the stairs.
Have we met?
He tailed her just close enough so he could hear what was going on, but not too close to draw any attention.

When she reached the third floor, Jayden slowed his pace and spied between the rusted railings.

When Blade draped his arm over her shoulder, Hawa’s muscles tensed under his touch.

“What’s going on?” Blade said in a low, steady voice.

She squirmed, clearly trying to shift his arm off her shoulders without being too forceful. “What do you mean?”

He calmly brushed her hair away from her neck with the other hand. She cringed.

“Is there something going on I should know about?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Just finishing my chores.”

“Right.” He analyzed her face. “And you and the
gringo
. What about that? Something going on there?”

She paused, and her eyes narrowed. “We’re just traveling together. I told you.”

He let out a low laugh. “Kind of like how you and me were just traveling together, huh?”

“No. Not like that.” She stepped back.

His arm slid off her shoulders, and he pumped his fists. “No? Not like that?” He stepped closer, pinning her back against the wall.

“Blade—”

He rested a hand on either side of her, trapping her in place. “I missed the way you say my name, you know that?”

Jayden crept up a step as silently as he could. If he had to step in, things would get ugly.

“I need to go finish my chores,” Hawa said. Her voice carried a slight tremble.

“Say my name again. Just one more time.” Blade shifted even closer to her, pressing his body against hers. He pinched her face between his fingers, puckering her lips.

Hawa sucked in a breath and jerked her head to the side. “Stop it, Blade.”

He grinned. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He dragged his fingers down her cheek. “I really did miss you, Brisa.” He grabbed her face again and forced his lips against hers.

Jayden ground his teeth. That was it.

When he stepped toward them, a shooting pain tore through his temples. He crumbled to the stairs and cupped his hands over his ears, squinting his eyes shut.

The black space opened up to him, and Modem appeared behind his closed lids, in his subconscious. “You don’t want to do that.” She cocked her head to the side, pursing her lips.

Jayden stood in the void space with the girl. “Get out of my head.”

“You were about to do something stupid. I’m saving you. You could say thank you.”

“He’s hurting her.”

“What, are you her babysitter or something? Brisa has been dealing with Blade for as long as I can remember. If you step in, it’ll just make it worse.”

“Not if I kill him first,” he said through clenched teeth.

“And then what’ll happen to all the kids who live in the Thirteenth Street Hotel? You plan to take care of us when Blade is gone?”

Jayden snorted. He could barely take care of himself.

“Don’t forget, your powers are different now. That’s why I gave you the ability to talk to her with your mind.” She tapped her head.

Jayden searched for a logical explanation, and came up with only one. It was her. She was the reason he could talk to Hawa with his mind.

Modem’s eyes widened and her lips parted, showing a faint smile. “You thought you were doing that by yourself?” She laughed. Like, a full on belly laugh. Little jerk. “Okay. Here’s the deal.” She shifted toward him. “I’m helping you out because you’re helping Brisa. So as long as you’re here, with her, I’ll keep letting you
borrow
the ability to talk to her through your mind.” She quoted the word ‘borrow’ with her fingers.

“And if I leave?”

“You go back to your ability controlling you, and nobody there to help when the crazy witch decides she’s going to eat your brains.” She shrugged. “Everyone’s got to pay some kind of price, right?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure you’re only twelve? Like, legit twelve?”

Her brow furrowed again. “You’ve got to stop asking stupid questions. What other kind of twelve is there?” She rolled her eyes. “Just shut up and don’t do anything stupid. Brisa is a big girl. She can handle Blade, as long as you don’t make it harder for her. Meanwhile, you and I have a witch to hunt.”

***

After his splitting headache subsided, Jayden wove through the hotel to Modem’s computer room. The door hung open, showing a labyrinth of blinking lights, crisscrossed cords, and computer monitors, all displaying endless lines of green code scrolling over the screen. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

Modem looked at him from the corner, half-buried in disassembled computer parts. “Hey.”

“Oh. Hi.” It would take some time to get used to meeting up with a kid. But he’d seen what Marzena could do, and Modem was formidable. She just wore the ability a lot different, though that was probably due to her genuine youth.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” she said, typing away at a keyboard. “You need that book, right?”

Jayden nodded. “She’s using it to do…” He scratched the back of his head. What she was doing with the book, exactly, he wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t good. “Stuff.”

Modem paused and gazed up at him with an unamused stare. “Stuff,” she stated flatly. She gave a long exhale and returned her gaze to the computer screen. “We don’t know where Contessa is hiding, doing this
stuff
, right?”

“Not unless we want to try our luck in Moscow, where she lives.”

“Na.” Modem tossed a handful of green and silver computer chips in the garbage. “I doubt she’s stupid enough to stay there with the book, now that she knows you’re onto her.”

“What makes you think she knows?”

Modem snorted. “Thanks to your ability going rogue, I’m pretty sure she spotted you the first time you sought her. Or she at least has a clue.”

He nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Right. I forgot about that.”

“That place you find her looks pretty nasty, if you ask me. The desert and all those hands coming out of the ground.”

How did she know about that? She wasn’t protecting him then, but she must have still been spying on his vision. Jayden froze. That vision was right after he and Hawa…“Okay. Ground rules.” He stepped toward her, staring down at her tiny frame. “No climbing in my head unless we agree on it. There’s stuff I want to keep…personal.”

She pursed her lips. “Yeah, sure. Personal.” She nodded. “Got it.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” She raised her hand, lifting her index and middle finger together. “Girl Scout’s honor.” She grinned.

The girl was clever. He’d have to be doubly cautious around her. “So what’s your master plan?” A part of him couldn’t believe he was asking a kid that question.

“Do that seeky thing you do again, and this time, I’ll stay with you the entire time. We’ll figure out exactly where she is, find out how to get there
for real
, and not just in a vision, and then we’ll take that book.”

“I doubt that’s possible.”

“Why?”

“Because where she’s hiding isn’t really anywhere we can go. Not physically, anyway.”

Modem’s fingers stilled over the keyboard and she peered up at him. “What does that mean?”

Telling the kid about the underworld, and the fact he’d had an extended stay there once, was a little more info than he cared to share. Maybe just giving her half the truth was good enough for now. “She’s hiding in another realm.”

Curiosity flickered in her gaze. “Really?” A half-smile spread over her lips. “Where? There are other realms? How do you go there? Why is she—?”

“Whoa.” He snickered. “One question at a time, and not so many, if you don’t mind.”

“But I want to know—”

“I know you do. There’s probably a lot you want to know, but you shouldn’t try to learn it all at once. It’s a lot to wrap your mind around.”

She was silent a moment, and then groaned. “Fine.”

“Fine.” He smiled softly. Poor kid had a lifetime of learning about a world she never imagined existed. First, they needed to take care of Contessa, and then they’d have some free time to tell the girl about her future. His smile faded. A future as a kid, forever. “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “So I’m thinking if we follow your plan with a few tweaks, we can still get this done. I’ll seek her, you protect me, and I’ll grab the book.”

“What makes you think you can take it through a vision? Does it work like that?”

Considering the hands that had grabbed his ankles had left scratches, and the heat really did scorch his skin, just about anything was possible. “I think so.” His mind flickered to Zanya and the danger she’d be in if he didn’t at least stall Contessa from completing her plan. “I hope so.”

“First things first.” She crossed her arms. “What’s in it for me?”

Jayden examined her closely. The kid was up to something. “What do you want?”

She shrugged. “That’s easy. Out of here.”

He stepped aside and gestured to the door. “Want me to open it for you?”

“No, idiot. Out of this hotel. I’m sick of living in this place with all these people. I don’t have any privacy, and there’s no way I’m going into the system. But Brisa used to tell me about her uncle’s house when she went to visit. It sounds pretty nice over there.”

“I won’t stand in your way from moving there tomorrow. They’d probably welcome you in, but you’ll have to go alone. I’m not going back.”

“Really.” The word was more of a statement than a question. “What about Brisa? You’re just going to let her leave when she decides to go home?”

“I don’t know if she’s going back. But like you said. If she does, she can take care of herself.”

Modem examined him, and then curled her lip. “You
are
a jerk. Forget it. I don’t want to help.” She sat back and picked up another stack of computer chips, analyzing each of them, one at a time.

“So that’s it?” He waited, but she didn’t respond. “You can’t just pretend you’re not different. That you’re not like us.”

Modem shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just a kid.”

“How about I ask Hawa if she knows what I’m talking about?”

Modem lifted her gaze. “You wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know me very well.”